


My Heroes

by Reyemile



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Mystery crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23921761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reyemile/pseuds/Reyemile
Summary: Marinette's father is a bread-maker of massive proportions, hauling flour sacks with ease. Marinette's mother is a deft and graceful pastry chef, with an incredible talent for managing multiple projects across the bakery. This much hasn't changed.But everything else is different.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 45
Collections: April 2020 - AU





	My Heroes

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the April 2020 fic exchange on [The Miraculous Fanworks Discord](https://discord.gg/PjNZgsf).

Stoneheart had been absolutely terrifying. Marinette had almost quit, and only Alya’s encouraging words (and inability to find the stupid box hidden in her stupid backpack) had put Marinette back into her spotted leotard. Stormy Weather had been incredibly destructive, the Expectorator had been disgusting, and the Bubbler had been too close to home. 

But with akuma number five, things were finally getting _easier,_ and Marinette was finally beginning to think she could actually win. 

She’d met up with Chat Noir minutes after the newly-christened Akuma Alert system had warned her about Inspector Eyeballs, and the flirty boy had for once demonstrated some common sense and hid from the akumatized policeman’s titular surveillance drones until Marinette had made a plan. The fight was over in fifteen minutes, and she was already back at the balcony of the B&H Boulangerie Patisserie with plenty of time left over for tonight’s homework. 

“Good to see you again, plants!” she whispered to the potted greenery, thriving in the humid autumn air. She knelt to open the trap door down to her room, wanting to break sight-lines before invoking the glowing pink of her detransformation. “Have a nice night!” she said to the flowers on her way down. They didn’t answer, of course, but that wasn’t the point. A few short ladder steps later, she closed off the night sky and readied herself to be Marinette once again. 

“Tikki, spots… wait. Something’s not right.”

Ladybug was not a suspicious person by nature. She didn’t _want_ to be one, even though paranoia was likely a survival trait under her circumstances. But years of petty pranks by the socially invulnerable Chloé Bourgeois had instilled Marinette with an uncanny sense of when things were out of place. That subconscious mental jingle that often preceded gum in her hair or juice on her clothing was a raucous jangle now, and she knew better than to ignore it. 

“Let’s see,” she said to herself, padding down the last few rungs. _I started the afternoon sewing. Everything looks right with the fabric. Then math, history, grammar--the books are in the right order. Then the alert went off so suddenly that I practically jumped, and my pen… went… flying…_

She tip-toed to her desk. One hand, she kept on her yo-yo. The other picked up the pink pen with a distinctive feather topper, an implement that _should_ have been lost somewhere in the bedspread on the other side of the room, from where it rested on a half-completed worksheet.

“Is anyone there?” she asked nervously. 

When her closet sneezed, she sprung into action. Crouched in a low combat stance, she balanced on her toes and her left hand while her right flung the yo-yo at the door. She jerked it back to her, flinging it open, to reveal the intruders…

...specifically, her mother and father, squished together in a space entirely too small for even her papa alone. 

“Mama…dame Cheng? Monsieur Duparr?” Ladybug gasped, as the two parents tumbled onto the floor.

“I told you not to sneeze!” the large bread-maker griped, unsteadily finding his feet. He straightened his blonde hair with a massive hand. His equally blond mustache bobbed as he talked, looking out of place above his square jaw. 

His wife kipped up gracefully. Her Chinese gown was pulled tight, hugging her wasp-like waist. She straightened it out to hide her figure. “And I told you to stop wearing that awful cologne!”

“It’s our date night!”

“Yes, _our_ date night--mine too!” Mme. Cheng shook her head. “But banter later. Crisis now. Marinette?”

In a wide-eyed panic, Marinette tried to do one of her least favorite things: to lie. “She… got kidnapped! By the akuma. She’s fine! Totally fine, miraculous ladybugs and all, but she’s… stuck! With Chat. Across Paris! I’m here to tell you she’ll be back soon.” As she spoke, she walked backwards one step at a time towards the ladder to the roof.

Her father matched her step for step. “Marinette, honey,” her father said soothingly. “Let’s talk about this…”

“You can talk with your daughter as soon as she gets back let me go get her!” Ladybug babbled, turning and racing for the exit.

“Marinette!” her mother shouted. Mme. Cheng reached for her daughter.

And reached… and reached…

As her arm stretched like rubber across the room, zipping past Ladybug’s head and slamming the trapdoor shut in front of her, a single terrifying thought crossed her mind: 

_Akuma._

Ladybug leapt straight up, turning to hit the ceiling feet-first. Her ‘mother’ threw her other hand at her, distending her flesh unnaturally, but Ladybug was already moving. She springboarded down, past her mother, by her father, aiming for the exit down the stairs. Her father moved with astounding speed to intercept. With terrible guilt, she rolled her arm under her and prepared to shoulder-check him out of the way.

Instead, she bounced off him like a tennis ball hitting the side of a brick house. 

Whatever Hawk Moth had done, it affected both her parents. Her feet scrabbled for purchase on the wooden floor, and she dashed once again. Once again, her ‘father’ moved to cut her off, shouting, “sweetie, calm down!” But she ignored the words of the thing corrupting her family, and prepared to push past him with miraculous strength that could carry a dozen civilians or toss a car across the Seine. 

All her might pushed him back a total of three steps. And then she was trapped, as a pair of impossibly strong arms wrapped her in a bear hug. 

“Let me go!” Ladybug shouted, thrashing. Her feet found purchase upon the very same closet in which her parents had hidden, and with a kick, she sent it across the room and her dad staggering back. 

“She’s… strong!” Her dad grunted. “This is _awesome!”_

“Be proud _later,_ Bob! We need to get her to stop fighting!”

“Your heard your mother, cupcake, stop-ow!” He’d backed into a wall, knocking loose her calendar and several of Adrien’s headshots. 

Ladybug threw her lower body in the air, then jerked it back down. The combination knocked her father off balance, but didn’t loosen his grip. He ended up riding her piggyback style. She dashed again for the exit, carrying him with him. But the akuma impersonating Hélène Cheng extended her leg and wrapped it around the foot of the bed. The elastic tripwire caught Ladybug’s ankle and left her sprawling under the weight of her burden.

“Let me go!” Ladybug repeated, kicking wildly in the air.

“Calm her down, Bob!” her mother said as she fought.

“And how--ugh!--am I supposed to do that?” Ladybug’s heel caught his knee, hard. “Ow! That actually hurt. _Awesome!_ ”

Hélène circled the scuffle. “I don’t know, what did you do to get her back to sleep after her nightmares?”

“ _Showtunes!_ ” he answered, wrestling her down to the ground. Mustering her strength, Ladybug jumped. He left a baker-shaped divot in the ceiling, but when they came crashing down, she was still held fast. “Ow! She’s not two anymore, and this situation isn’t really conducive so _singing!_ ”

Using the banter as a distraction, Ladybug moved her hand enough to make an underhanded toss of her yo-yo towards the roof. She tried to pull herself and her father up and out, but her mother tied her legs in a knot around the bannister to the downstairs and wrapped her arms three times around the heroine, holding her fast. Grunting at the strain, her mother said, “Do you have a better idea?”

“Oh, come on--you know what, fine! I’ll try it!” Still squeezing, he cleared his throat. “ _Luck be a lady tonight. Never get out of my sight…”_

A memory, blurry and out of focus like an old camera with a dirty lens, flitted through Marinette’s mind. She was tiny and adorable, wearing a hamster-themed onesie and holding a stuffed bear in one hand. Her blue eyes glittered with tears from a terrifying, forgotten nightmare. And her father, tired, bleary-eyed, and loving, sat by her side, holding her hand and singing off-key, “ _Luck, if you’ve ever been a lady to begin with, Luck be a lady tonight!_ ”

She stopped kicking. “Maman? Papa?” She let the yoyo unwind in her fingers, and her mother settled her and her father down on the floor of her utterly destroyed bedroom.

Her father let her go, and her mother’s limbs snapped back into human proportion. “It’s us, cupcake,” said her father. “Now let’s take off the mask and talk about this. Okay?”

“Oh… okay. Tikki? Spots off.” 

With a flash, Marinette was her ordinary self, facing two very not-ordinary parents. Tikki, reappearing at her side, blinked. “Marinette, you know you’re not supposed to tell anyone about me!”

“What choice did I have, Tikki?” Marinette stomped her foot, but there was no real point in staying angry. With a sigh, she said, “Maman, papa, this is Tikki, my Kwami. She grants me the powers of Ladybug.”

“Kwami…” her father said. His face was stern and analytical, like a bodyguard watching for danger. “Where have I heard that before?”

“Jade Turtle,” said Hélène. “Helped us against Netherizer in ‘96.”

“‘97,” Bob corrected.

“‘96.”

“‘96 was Necrotizer. Netherizer was 1997!”

Marinette’s mother threw her hands up in the air. “Fine, 1997, I don’t care! We have a crisis right now, and we need to deal with it. Marinette, honey, being a superhero is incredibly dangerous. _What were you thinking?”_

What _was_ she thinking? The answer, of course, was Alya. On that fateful day, she had quoted her favorite heroes straight from the comic book, and that message had struck Marinette’s core. 

And now, more than ever, she understood what it meant.

“I did it because my heroes told me to. They taught me that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph…” she began.

Her father’s smile lit up the room. “...is for good people to do nothing. Did you get that from a philosophy book, or…”

Marinette smiled back. “From _les Aventures Fantastique de M. Incroyable et Elastigirl._ ” Slightly nervously, she added, “...that… that is you, right, papa?”

“We were going to tell you someday,” her mother said apologetically. “But after the lawsuits, we had to keep a low profile, and even though you’re the most amazing daughter either of us could have asked for, you never showed any sign of having powers. In hindsight, it was a terrible mistake, since it ended up with you running off half-cocked to fight a supervillain all alone.”

“Not alone,” Marinette answered defensively. “I have Chat Noir--”

“Another kid, right?” Her mother seemed taller all of a sudden. Marinette couldn’t quite tell whether it was pure intimidation or just her stretching her legs. “I knew signing off on those comics was a terrible idea…”

“Hey, those comics bought us our first bread oven. We’d never have gotten the bakery started without the royalties!”

Tikki floated between the three of them, clearing her throat to remind them of her presence. “M. Duparr, Mme. Cheng?” she said, her small voice carrying the weight of ages. “You being heroes changes things, but Marinette’s job is incredibly important, and you of all people should know how risky it is for _anyone_ to know her identity…”

“We can deal with all that later,” Bob said. “Right now, something else takes priority.”

“It does?” asked Tikki, confused.

“It does,” Bob said. And then he picked up Marinette, spinning her wildly, and said, “I’m so glad you’re safe! And I’m so proud that you’re fighting for the greater good. I love you, Marinette.”

Hélène joined in, encircling them three times and squeezing them with matronly love. “Please don’t scare us like that again, Marinette. You can _talk_ to us. We love you more than anything, and we’ll do whatever it takes to help you.”

Eyes damp with loving tears, Marinette Duparr-Cheng said, “and I love both of you. So, so much.” And she lost herself in her family’s joy for a very long time.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the April 2020 fic exchange on [The Miraculous Fanworks Discord](https://discord.gg/PjNZgsf). The character is Marinette, the AU is Disney (Pixar is on Disney+!) and the genre is humor/fluff. This won't be a continuous story, but I have a few more snippets in mind to explore some of the elements of this AU.
> 
> chaerim, hope you liked it! If this isn't quite what you wanted, that's on me; I had a story more directly applicable to your prompt but got majorly writer's-blocked. I do plan to get back to it and I'll ping you when I do, but until this, here's this to tide you over. Enjoy!
> 
> Edit: and, forgetful me needs to thank betas. Khanofallorcs and wellsaltedlady, thanks for the feedback and editing!


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